NEW CELLAR DOOR SOLVES BASEMENT FLOODING

OLD UNIT WAS SITTING TOO LOW TO A PATIO

Eric Martindale - Nov 30th, 2022

Many times a customer needs to change out an old Bilco door to resolve basement flooding, not because it’s rusted, but because it’s sitting too low. I get several of these jobs every year. Most of the incoming calls come within 3 weeks of a big storm. 

In the summer of 2022, a customer in Bergenfield, New Jersey found us online, and complained that water was just pouring down the basement steps every time there was an intense rainfall. Several times a year their basement was getting flooded.

 “It needs to be replaced, but what’s the point of putting in a new one if water can still come in under the new doors”, she said.

I went over there to evaluate the problem. It took about 5 seconds for me to see exactly what the problem was. The Bilco was likely original to the house, and close to 70 years old. The patio was built some time later, and they didn’t excavate the yard first before creating the patio.

The mason recognized that it would be a problem that the new patio surface would be higher than the Bilco base, so he crafted a trench about 6” wide in front of the Bilco, and his trench drained out to the right generally towards the street (see bricks). That trench was an epic engineering failure right from the first day it was created. The trench is nowhere near the capacity to handle the runoff from the patio, especially because the trench doesn’t really drain anywhere very well. Water pools fairly deep to the side of the house. 

I knew right away that the answer was to raise the Bilco about 4” using the small size cinderblocks all the way around the base.  It was a brutal hot day in early August, way into the 90’s. It was simply miserable, and very humid. Yes, I personally worked, but I brought two guys instead of one, and they did the bulk of the work. We each downed at least 6 bottles of water….lol.

Here’s the job in phases. Customer had an old rusted Bilco B series, which is 51” wide, and it projects 64”. 

After the demolition, we added 4” thick solid cinderblocks on the front and one side, and some bricks on the rear landing side.

Below is the finished masonry. We filled right over that pesky trench. Gone. We determined that it would be impossible for the water to ever pool more than 1” deep on the patio, as it would drain away on all sides. The new foundation is about 2.5” higher than the patio, enough to resolve the water issues.

The design for this job was trickier than most. 

PLAN A: If we increased the foundation height 4”, and restored a new Bilco B the same size, the first step down would have been about 12” high, which is too high. Most steps are 7” – 8” high. That wasn’t going to happen. Let’s go to Plan B.

PLAN B: I then considered to replace the Bilco B with a Bilco C, which is 55” wide instead of 51”, and it projects 72” instead of 64”. By increasing the projection from 64” to 72”, that’s a gain of 8 inches, and the additional cinderblocks could become a step about 4” high. However, at 55” width the new Bilco would have been awkwardly close to the corner of the house, and more importantly there would have been a structural problem. The right side would have been past the existing Bilco foundation. It would have been awkward to stagger the new cinderblocks that much, and for cost reasons, we didn’t want to excavate a make a wider foundation. Customer was on a tight budget. That brought us to Plan C.

PLAN C: Gordon is Bilco’s biggest competitor. Gordon makes a CD-3 unit is 53” wide, and it projects 71”. The 2” saved on the width seems minor, but in this case it made a big difference. It got Gordon the order. It’s rare that we change brands from Bilco to Gordon, or Gordon to Bilco, but in this case, it was the smart solution. Bilco is a better brand, and it has the pump pistons, but Gordon was the best fit for this job. 

Gordon cellar doors come only in a pre-primed red. Prior to delivery, my painter, Jossy, primed both sides and all surfaces with a Rustoleum primer, and then painted it a Rustoleum glossy black. 

Masonry work can be challenging when the temperatures soar into the 90’s, because the cement sets very fast. At 95 degrees, the cure time for Cement-All is only 5-7 minutes, and if you don’t thoroughly clean the bucket in between batches, it’s even less. Cement-All will take 2 hours to set at 40 degrees, and about 1 hour in the 60’s.  

For this job, we used a considerable amount of Type S mortar, which doesn’t set as fast. We used Cement-All where it was most needed, which was to secure the base of the Bilco to the new cinderblocks. Between the two cement types, we used 6 bags of cement.